I didn’t notice that. I was looking for something else and stumbled on that.
This is right.
Yes.
I am sure there is some flow in either direction, but the data indicate really it is the collapse of the old religions.
Not "even"
Especially.
The removal of the white Colonial super-structure greatly helped the Christian churches, freeing them from the direct association with the Colonial oppression and race discrimination.
I wish people here would at least try not to make assertions off of little knowledge about the Africa… it just happens so often the nerves become raw.
It’s okay I did not think otherwise.
but please have more care.
Supplanting a society with another, without actual warfare, often occurs when the current society is failing it’s own members. Real or imagined failures. Various religious and political groups can often take advantage of this. They are already organizations with many followers. They have a system of recruiting. A funding flow. An ideology to offer, that is of course proposed to make things better. A failing society will have large numbers of dissatisfied people, ready to clutch at straws. If their current leaders and social system continues to offer failing or no solutions, competing organizations will gain ever more traction. The tipping point can seem sudden, but usually not really. Things were ignored or covered up. Someone is always trying to rule the world to some extent. Individual, world to global. The best defense of your society is to keep it a good one. That takes work, individual and collective. Keep it just, healthy, strong and compassionate.
A problem with many societies is a narrow ideology that will not accept some realities. They often cannot see and accept real solutions to problems, if they do not match their ideology. Stubbornness in the face of reality, that make many in the society suffer needlessly. And really do weaken the society as a whole.
It’s worth remembering that not everyone is opposed to burdensome rules. For sure, the majority of Americans or Japanese or Swedes would be put off by the plethora of requirements in the major branches of Islam. But to some people it’s attractive. Particularly in the case of young, confused people who are looking for direction in life.
Islam offers a clear set of beliefs and a large number of confident believers. Many leaders in the West-political, media, religious-don’t have that clarity and confidence. Some people find it appealing. Not everyone, but Islam has gained some converts.
Sorry I haven’t been on today, but a lot of people covered the points I would have made. I haven’t heard anyone assert the contrary of my OP, that the US, Europe, and East Asia (I meant China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan) would see many converts. People have taken potshots at my OP, however, while not asserting I was wrong. A few points:
As to whether any particular position of Islam is Salafist or not, or whether I don’t understand the difference or not. First, I already pointed out I knew that many Muslims don’t encounter these strictures much or at all, such as the Turks, so: reading comprehension.
Ramira was apparently born into the religion in North Africa and hasn’t seen such strictures himself. Fine. But are the imams that preach such middle-of-the-road Islam out getting converts? “Oh, you should absolutely convert to Islam, but don’t worry about drinking alcohol, some of the more extreme statements on food, etc. etc.” Those guys aren’t on YouTube, let me tell you that. And that is what I meant by Islam as “folk religion”: the Turks for the most part aren’t that strict when it comes to Islam, but Turks also aren’t walking around and trying to get people to join their religion because it will really make a difference in their lives. They were born into it, they have no motivation to renounce it, but they aren’t trying to sell it, either. It’s just in the background.
As a related example, Japanese people aren’t Buddhist or Shinto. I have literally met one Japanese person who said he was serious about Buddhism. In Japan, you have a Shinto wedding (though not very common these days; I had one), and you have a Buddhist funeral. That’s the extent of Japanese belief. And don’t even get me started on Zen this and Zen that. No one in Japan (that you are ever likely to meet) even knows much about the teachings of Zen, let along practices it.
FWIW, I have never met a single Japanese convert to Islam. I have met some Catholics who were pretty sincere, as well as some people who were in a neo-Shinto cult who were sincere. Sure, if you go looking for converts to Islam, I’m sure you can find them. I would venture to guess that in 98% of the cases, the person converted to get married to a Muslim.
As to whether any particular food is haram or halal, one can certainly find a lot of different information online. The websites do not go out of their way to label themselves by sect, so that information is difficult to discern. I may be misinformed to one degree or another, but I think it’s safe to say that the average person will not find it easy to discover what is the “true Islam.”
It’s a big world. Where I lived in northern Cameroon, there were converts because Christianity was the religion most often found in small villages, and Islam was prevalent in larger cities. As people moved to urban centers, they converted to fit in. The idea of banning music is absurd-- music plays and always has played an important role in the tradition political structure (which is Muslim). And the drinking thing, well our rule was generally “try not to get publicly drunk on a Friday’”, which was not particular well-followed given that Friday was the town’s market day.
With few exceptions, nobody anywhere is doing a lot of converting. You don’t see a lot of Buddhists or Christians becoming Muslim. But you also don’t see a lot of Buddhists or Christians becoming anything, expcet maybe a different sect of whatever they already follow or a drift towards being less religious in general. The major religions staked their claims long ago, and you don’t see a lot of shifting around between them. And that’s likely, as you’ve noted, that often religion is about culture and family more than anything else.
about conversion or about the other content. The other content is full of being completely wrong.
your so-called strictures asserted (when you were not completely wrong and confusing the judiasm with Islam, e.g. the shell-fish), are those of the puritan minority, asserted by them. they are not the Quran but various puritan traditions.
Ironic since you show little reading comprehension in what was said
Avoiding porc and alcohol are ‘extreme’?
that is it besides the halal meat, which is essentially identical to the kosher meat
Other things you seem to have confused jewish rules for islamic.
Animists religions are, effectively, a pretty unpleasant way of viewing the world, and huge numbers of people converted to Christianity and Islam when they saw the choice.
Islam could easily take PNG, escept that, as in Africa, it is associated with an exploitative warrier culture that doesn’t want to include the natives.
This is a very strange thing to write. If we wish to find reason outside of belief itself, it is very simple to remark that the Islam and the Christianity provide a higher status with more international connections or regional connections. This is seen as advantageous.
??
Again it would be nice if people here would pause and stop repeating ignorance and half information…
The Islam in the largest space of Africa (the West Africa) was and is associated not with “warrier culture” but with the Muslim traders who first brought it. Like in the East Asia (or the SE Asia if following the UN meaning), the Islamic spread is and was principally by the association with the merchant class and long-distance traders, and came with the form of the sufi Tariqa like the Tidjania etc.
The idea expressed has no relationship with the actual historical spread of the Islam in the greatest part of Africa…
When was this? When I was there a few years back, aside from the compulsory label on all alcohol stating “Not for sale to Muslims”, I also came across closed down bars with signs stating that the venue was closed as it had been found selling alcohol to Muslims.
Seems the government is, in fact, trying to ban such a practice.
Not really, dude.
You can actually find online debates and explications of whether shrimp are haram or halal.
http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-65010.html
Etc.
Again, you’re completely ignoring what I’ve said from the beginning, in which I recognized that many Muslims don’t follow all that. But where I am mentioning specific things, there is online content and people quoting Hadith about them, such as for music. And will you find, on any particular reference, a label as to whether a thing is puritan or conservative or whatever? No, you will not.
And you’re kindof being uncool as a Muslim and not being conducive to converting others, inasmuch as you are putting down someone (me) who is showing curiosity about your religion and actually doing quite a bit of studying about it. Good luck in getting more people interested. :dubious:
No, you.
Sure, when a country guzzles pork and alcohol, like Japan. This whole point of this thread is about conversion, whether people would accept such a change.
yes really, dude…
You can find a lot of complete idiocy on-line. I would have, if I was so naive and stupid as to try to learn about any Christian sect by the simple reading online forums, so very stupid and ignorant ideas about what is the Christianity in its practice and in its precepts.
I would hope that if I came to a discussion about the Christianity widely and I used as a citation for its precepts some online forum that I would be laughed at.
it is not ignored.
what is the problem is you start from the assumption that those are the standards. they are not.
I have no interest in converting others.
I am tired of gross misrepresentations about the religion. more than one decade here and I have not seen improvement in fact the opposite.
If quite a lot of studying means reading random and unreliable websites, it is preferable that you do not.
if my learning of the Christianity was so limited, I would not write strong assertions about Belief X or Y.
super, we can expect the japan not to be greatly attracted.
your initial framing of the question was not the Japan, but east asia and for many of us the definition is wider.
If you want to actually learn about some Islamic practices, I would not read in any case message boards, you could start with the wikipedia (although it is greatly flawed and often edited in a biased way, at least the biases are usually flagged).
You could have seen in Islamic Dietary laws page a list that is at least generally applicable (although it is tending to the stricter views)
or even the comparison of the Islamic and the Jewishrules (although it contains a strange section on the ‘halal kitchen’ although labeled in the notes as ‘unreliable source.’
This small effort would have showed the supposed rules were ‘confused.’
You haven’t said what I got factually wrong. If you want to say that the strictures I cited lean heavily toward he puritanical, then fine, your point is taken, and I never disagreed with that.
There is also the issue of something being the rule but not enforced. I was raised Catholic. The Church has a bunch of extremely strict and stupid rules about sexuality that 97.84% of Catholics (approximately) ignore, but that doesn’t mean that those rules don’t exist. Islam by its nature is harder to understand in this regard than many religions in that there is no pope of Islam, no single catechism, and obviously significant disagreement about various doctrines.
I’m not sure how you would suggest one to study Islam in order to please you. I also said that I was watching videos on YouTube with a variety of speakers, such as Yasir Qadi, who is very well-spoken and seemingly far from some some obscure dude. Of course, I have read about the basics of Islam, stuff no one disagrees about.
I also disagree about what you said about Christianity. If you were to come here and say you watched a video with a preacher saying non-Christians are going to hell, evolution is wrong, and premarital sex is frowned upon by Jesus H. Christ, I wouldn’t be surprised because that’s a major strain of thinking in Christianity in the US. A lot of people believe that way. I certainly wouldn’t put you down and say you are confused about what is “real Christianity” or non-puritan Christianity. The fact of the matter is that there is almost an infinite variety. More likely you would be interested in a particular sect, and if that were the case I don’t think online forums are likely to steer you in the wrong direction. For example, if you were interested in Mormonism and were reading about it and watching videos, I think it’s likely that the impressions you received would be mostly correct. If you got something wrong, then people in the know here would set you straight without calling you an idiot.
If Islam is somehow different from that, and maybe it is, then that’s a weakness.
They are some Muslims’ standards, and they are not hard to find online, and it may perhaps be stated that Muslims with the strictest standards are the ones doing the most to promote themselves.
So if I quote what actual Muslims believe, that is “gross misrepresentation”? I think not. Even if you wish to say, “It’s those darn Salafists,” well, those people are not rare nor small in number, even if they are a minority. There is a Salafi mosque here in Indy. They are making themselves heard.
I just find your attitude quite odd. You don’t wish me to gain any information from imams quoting al-Quran and Hadith in Arabic. I guess I need to buy the Ramira textbook in order to know exactly what you wish me to know, no more, no less.
Well, we cleared that all up, didn’t we?
Now further on the error of the Dogs
here again it is easy to find in the wikipedia a summary on Animals in Islam that shows clearly enough that the idea the “Islam” as such condemns dogs is utterly wrong (as it happens I am of the Maliki tradition, which is one of the largest and the dominant in the Africa, and does not agree with the idea of ritual uncleanliness - never mind it has not any support in the Quran)
"
so it is relatively easy to not rely on the random youtubes and the random incoherent message boards to at least have some basic orientation that is at least subject to some basic checking to identify the more prejudiced or just completely wrong ideas, and also to put into a context the assertions by the various exteme minority sects that shout loudly on the Internet…
I have said it many times. You have the pre conceived conclusions and ideas and are screening anything said through them. Since this is a sterile and a wasting of time, basta.
True.
No. I don’t know how many Muslims believe any one thing. I think you’re associating me with Westerners who confidently make conclusions about Islam. I don’t think that way, and, in any case, what we have been arguing about wasn’t the main point of my OP and was a small point in its own right.
Don’t call me a bastard!
it means enough.
in any case the idea one can learn about a religion via random youtubes… I know well I would have very weird ideas about the Christian religion if I relied on the youtube for learning.
I’m friends with two Japanese people who converted to Islam, both of them university professors. They studied under the famous scholar Toshihiko Izutsu, author of Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts.
edit—not Facebook friends, but real-life face-to-face friends, from academic conferences I attended in the '90s.